Carroll County’s longest tenured varsity football coach announced his decision to leave his post at South Carroll in a post on the team’s website Wednesday morning. The news sparked an outpouring of support from coaches, former players, and members of the community via social media.

Luette cited a few reasons for departing from coaching, the biggest being his discovery at Christmastime that he would be a grandfather.

“I’m a firm believer that football not only teaches players how to play, but it teaches them to be successful in life,” Luette said. “My biggest hope is that all the players we’ve coached over the years will be successful in whatever they decide to do after they graduate from high school whether it is to go into college, business or the armed forces. We want them to be successful and that’s what I think football brings to all players who play the game.”

Luette’s coaching career began at Lenape High School in Medford, New Jersey, in 1985. He coached the team’s junior varsity squad prior to accepting an offensive coordinator position at Morningside College in Sioux City, Iowa.

Luette, who played football at Western Maryland College, returned to Carroll County and served as an assistant from 1998-2003 before working at St. Paul’s School in Baltimore.

In 2009, he took over as South Carroll’s head coach. The Cavaliers went 66-37 under Luette, including a 47-13 county record. SC reached the state semifinals in 2014, and crafted a 10-0 regular season in 2010.

“I think we set up a great system that was fun to watch,” Luette said. “We had a youth game where rec players could come watch our players warm up and stay for the game to watch them play. It’s great to see kids at the rec level want to play and watch games like that because they get so fired up about the high school players. I’m proud that the kids in the community have grown up wanting to go to South Carroll and have that passion and desire to play football.”

South Carroll athletic director Jim Horn said Luette’s hire came at the right time for the program.

“He stepped into a situation that was very complex, very emotional and we were really in a bad situation when he stepped into the program,” Horn said. “He brought a sense of calm to the whole program and he began a very good system of communication with the community. He started to make people feel at ease and that was very important at the time.”

Luette said informed the football team of his departure early Wednesday morning, news that seemed to come as a surprise to many of them. Luette said he will miss teaching the players the ins and outs of the game and the excitement of coaching under the Friday night lights.

“What I’ll also miss quite a bit is the camaraderie I had with all my coaches, JV and varsity,” Luette said. “We were pretty close and worked all these years together on and off the field. We put a lot of hours in and I will really miss that.”

The Cavs went 2-8 last fall (1-5 in the county) and were 6-14 over the past two seasons, but they averaged 7.3 wins with Luette as coach.

The search for his replacement will begin immediately, Horn said, with enough time to advertise the position and give people the chance to apply accordingly. Luette said he would be more than willing to assist in the search, if necessary.

Horn said he will not only miss Luette’s trustworthiness as a coach and member of the community, but his “witty, dry sense of humor” too.

“I think as far as the community is going to miss, he is a man who really established a program of trust, a program of winning and a program of success,” Horn said. “Even when things didn’t go well, you always felt like things were under control. It’s just been a pleasure working with Steve all these years.”